Larry Carpenter
Encyclopedia
Larry Carpenter is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 theatre and television director, and producer. In the theatre, he has worked as an Artistic Director, Associate Artistic Director, a Managing Director and General Manager in both the New York and Regional Arenas. He also works as a theatre director and is known primarily for large projects working on musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 and classical plays. In television, he works as a director for New York daytime drama. He is Executive Vice President of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, the national labor union for professional stage directors and choreographers. He is also a member of the Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America is an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...

 and the Political Action Committee of the Directors Guild of America
Political Action Committee of the Directors Guild of America
The Political Action Committee of the Directors Guild of America is a United States based political action committee of the Directors Guild of America....

,

Early life and career

Born and raised in Brockport, New York
Brockport, New York
Brockport is a village located in the Town of Sweden in Monroe County, New York, USA. The population was 8,103 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from Hiel Brockway, an early settler....

, Mr. Carpenter became involved in the theatre at age 12. In his hometown, SUNY Brockport offered a Theatre Arts major and produced a semi-professional summer theatre where he worked as a backstage hand and as young actor with such touring stars as Peggy Wood
Peggy Wood
Peggy Wood was an American actress of stage, film and television.-Early career:She was born Mary Margaret Wood in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Eugene Wood, a journalist, and Mary Gardner, a telegraph operator. She was a direct descendant of Daniel Boone...

, Ann Harding
Ann Harding
Ann Harding was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress.-Early years:Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to George G. Gatley and Elizabeth "Bessie" Crabb. The daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life...

 and Leo G. Carroll
Leo G. Carroll
Leo Gratten Carroll was an English-born actor. He was best known for his roles in several Hitchcock films and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Topper.-Early life:...

. He enrolled in Boston University College of Fine Arts
Boston University College of Fine Arts
The Boston University College of Fine Arts is unit of Boston University. The College consists of the School of Music, the School of Theatre, and the School of Visual Arts. Each of the individual schools offer degrees in the performing and visual arts at the undergraduate and graduate level...

 as an undergraduate designer
Designer
A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...

 and director. He graduated as a director and actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 and spent the next several years acting, singing and dancing with the Oregon and San Diego Shakespeare Festivals, the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and with the American Shakespeare Theatre
American Shakespeare Theatre
The American Shakespeare Theatre was a theater company based in Stratford, Connecticut, United States. It was formed in 1955 by Lawrence Langner, Lincoln Kirstein, and Joseph Verner Reed. Plays were produced at the Festival Theatre in Stratford from 1955 until the company ceased operations in...

 in Stratford, CT

Artistic Management & Theatre Direction

At the American Shakespeare Theatre
American Shakespeare Theatre
The American Shakespeare Theatre was a theater company based in Stratford, Connecticut, United States. It was formed in 1955 by Lawrence Langner, Lincoln Kirstein, and Joseph Verner Reed. Plays were produced at the Festival Theatre in Stratford from 1955 until the company ceased operations in...

, and subsequently at the McCarter Theatre
McCarter Theatre
McCarter Theatre is a not-for-profit, professional company on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. It is one of the most active cultural centers in the nation, offering over 200 performances of theater, dance, music and special events each year...

 in Princeton, NJ, he became the Associate Artistic Director to Michael Kahn
Michael Kahn (theatre director)
Michael Kahn is the Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., USA. He held the position of Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School from 1992 to 2006....

. He also met and married his wife of 36 years: Julia MacKenzie.

He moved to New York and became Managing Director of Garland Wright’s Lion Theatre Company; and then General Manager of the Harold Clurman Theatre. He also continued to direct. At the Lion he directed Charles Nolte’s A Night at the Black Pig and J.M. Barry’s Mary Rose
Mary Rose
The Mary Rose was a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. After serving for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany and after being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 1545. While leading the attack on the galleys of a...

. He also shared the directing duties with Mr. Wright for the subsequent iterations of Jack Heifner’s Vanities
Vanities
Vanities is a comedy-drama stage production written by Jack Heifner. The story centers on the lives and friendship of three Texas cheerleaders starting from high school.-Production history:Vanities had one of the longest Off-Broadway runs on record...

. For Playwrights’ Horizons he directed Martin Sherman’s Cracks, The Mousetrap
The Mousetrap
The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap opened in the West End of London in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. It has the longest initial run of any play in history, with over 24,500 performances so far. It is the longest running show of the modern...

, and Anything Goes
Anything Goes
Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...

. He also served as Gower Champion
Gower Champion
Gower Carlyle Champion was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer.-Early years:Champion was born in Geneva, Illinois, the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Carlisle. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from Fairfax High School...

’s Associate Director for his Broadway productions of Rockabye Hamlet
Rockabye Hamlet
Rockabye Hamlet is a rock musical with a book, lyrics, and music by Cliff Jones. It is based on the classic tragedy by William Shakespeare and tells the story of a Danish prince who plots revenge on his uncle for killing his father.- Production history :...

, The Act
The Act (musical)
The Act is a musical with a book by George Furth, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander.It was written to showcase the talents of Kander and Ebb favorite Liza Minnelli, who portrayed Michelle Craig, a fading film star attempting a comeback as a Las Vegas singer. The thin plot was little more...

with Liza Minnelli, and 42nd Street
42nd Street (musical)
42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...

.
Then, for eight years, while continuing to work as a freelance director, Mr. Carpenter served as the Artistic Director of the American Stage Festival in Milford, NH. Of ASF’s forty-five productions of revivals and new work, five productions were subsequently transferred to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

. Most notable are two productions directed by Mr. Carpenter: Ken Ludwig
Ken Ludwig
Ken Ludwig is an American playwright and theatre director.Born in York, Pennsylvania, Ludwig was educated at the York Suburban Senior High School, York PA Haverford College , Harvard Law School, and Trinity College at Cambridge University...

’s Lend Me a Tenor
Lend Me a Tenor
Lend Me a Tenor is a comedy by Ken Ludwig. The play was produced on both the West End and Broadway . Although it received seven Tony Award nominations, it won only one, for Best Actor. A Broadway revival opened in 2010. Lend Me a Tenor has been translated into sixteen languages and produced in...

and Barry Keating’s Starmites
Starmites
Starmites is a musical with music and lyrics by Barry Keating and a book by Stuart Ross and Barry Keating, first presented at the Ark Theatre Company. It received a Tony Award nomination as Best Musical....

. For this last, Mr. Carpenter received a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nomination.
Returning to New York, Mr. Carpenter directed the Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in New York City.-History:The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens and now operates five theatres, all in Manhattan: the American Airlines Theatre ; Studio 54 ; the Stephen Sondheim Theatre The...

 productions of The Doctor’s Dilemma, Light Up The Sky
Light Up the Sky
"Light Up the Sky" is the first single from Yellowcard's album Paper Walls. The live acoustic version was first heard on March 30, 2007, at their concert at the Troubador in West Hollywood, California. It was then played electric in later shows. On May 15, 2007, the fully mixed album version was...

and Privates on Parade
Privates on Parade
Privates on Parade: A Play with Songs in Two Acts is a 1977 farce by English playwright Peter Nichols , with music by Denis King.-Plot:...

—this latter starring Jim Dale
Jim Dale
Jim Dale, MBE is an English actor, voice artist, singer and songwriter. He is best known in the United Kingdom for his many appearances in the Carry On series of films and in the US for narrating the Harry Potter audiobook series, for which he received two Grammy Awards, and the ABC series Pushing...

, Donna Murphy
Donna Murphy
Donna Murphy is an American stage, film, television actress and singer.Murphy has won two Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical for her roles in Passion as Fosca and in The King and I as Anna Leonowens...

, and Simon Jones
Simon Jones (actor)
Simon Jones is an English actor, most famous for his appearances in the television and radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which he played the lead role of Arthur Dent from 1978 to 2005...

. Privates on Parade
Privates on Parade
Privates on Parade: A Play with Songs in Two Acts is a 1977 farce by English playwright Peter Nichols , with music by Denis King.-Plot:...

received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play. He then directed Lady in the Dark
Lady in the Dark
Lady in the Dark is a musical with music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart. It was produced by Sam Harris. The protagonist, Liza Elliott, is the unhappy female editor of a fashion magazine, Allure, who is undergoing psychoanalysis...

for City Center Encores! and the world premiere of Preston Sturges' A Cup of Coffee
A Cup of Coffee
A Cup of Coffee is a book in Arabic written by Abdullah AbdulRahman. The book is divided into three volumes, and contains many interviews with the older generation of the United Arab Emirates....

at SoHo Rep. He also served as Associate Artistic Director for the Berkshire Theatre Festival
Berkshire Theatre Festival
The Berkshire Theatre Festival is one of the oldest professional performing arts venues in the Berkshires, celebrating its 80th anniversary season in 2008.-History:...

.

Television & Theatre Direction

Mr. Carpenter then combined his theatre career with television to become a director of daytime drama. His award-winning body of work includes experience with multiple and single camera formats—with the edit suite and, conversely, with live-broadcast. He is practiced with work in-studio and on location. He has directed the daytime dramas As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...

, winning his first Daytime Emmy Award
Daytime Emmy Award
The Daytime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American daytime television programming...

. After brief stints with The Guiding Light and All My Children
All My Children
All My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia. The show features Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime's most...

, he joined ABC’s One Life to Live
One Life to Live
One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...

. There he’s received four DGA Awards and, together with the One Life to Live
One Life to Live
One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...

DGA team, won two Emmys. Throughout this period, he has continued to work as a theatre director, for the Huntington Theatre Company
Huntington Theatre Company
The Huntington Theatre Company is a non-profit professional theater company in Boston, Massachusetts. The Huntington has garnered six Elliot Norton Awards and three Tony Award nominations for productions that were transferred to Broadway after critically acclaimed productions in Boston...

, Seattle Rep, Goodspeed Opera House, Kansas City Repertory—the American Conservatory, Alliance, Pioneer and Walnut Street theatres—and the Pasadena Playhouse
Pasadena Playhouse
The Pasadena Playhouse is a historic performing arts venue located 39 S El Molino Avenue in Pasadena, California. The 686-seat auditorium produces a variety of cultural and artistic events, professional shows, and community engagements each year.-History:...

 and Westwood Theater (now the Geffen Playhouse
Geffen Playhouse
The Geffen Playhouse is a not for profit performing arts theater in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Originally named the Westwood Playhouse, UCLA purchased the property in 1993. UCLA's then chancellor, Charles E. Young, appointed Gil Cates Producing Director...

) in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...


Adaptation

Mr. Carpenter’s first adaptation of A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...

played many seasons at New England’s Merrimack Regional Theater and Nickerson Theater and at the Citadel Theatre
Citadel Theatre
The Citadel Theatre is the major venue for theatre arts in the city of Edmonton, located in the Downtown Core on Churchill Square.-History:Originally the "Old Salvation Army Citadel", the Citadel was bought by Joseph H. Shoctor, James L. Martin, Ralph B. MacMillan, and Sandy Mactaggart, and the...

 in Alberta. A second musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol played the Wilbur and Huntington theatres in Boston—starring Paul Benedict and then Clive Revill.
He wrote a new libretto for the Goodspeed Opera House production of Oscar Strauss’s operetta The Chocolate Soldier
The Chocolate Soldier
The Chocolate Soldier is an operetta composed in 1908 by Oscar Straus based on George Bernard Shaw's 1894 play, Arms and the Man...

. He also did significant work on the revival of Meredith Willson’s Here’s Love for Goodspeed; and on Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.Kiss...

for the Pioneer Theatre Company
Pioneer Theatre Company
The Pioneer Theatre Company is one of four fully professional theatre companies in Utah, formed in 1962 and performing at the Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City. The non-profit company produces seven plays each season, running from September to May,...

.
For the Huntington Theatre Company he adapted and directed Ostrovsky’s Diary of a Scoundrel and Feydeau’s The Lady from Maxims. He created a new version of Dion Boucicault’s The Shaughraun
The Shaughraun
The Shaughraun is a melodramatic play written by Irish playwright Dion Boucicault. It was first performed at Wallack's Theatre, New York, on 14 November 1874. Boucicault played Con in the original production...

; for the Huntington and Seattle Repertory theatres; and he adapted The Captain of Koepnick for the Huntington and ACT, San Francisco.
His adaptation of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....

played at both American Stage Festival and the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL.

Educator

Mr. Carpenter has taught and directed performance projects at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

: Theatre Division; New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

: Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts is one of the 15 schools that make up New York University ....

; American Conservatory Theatre Training Program; SUNY Purchase School of Theatre; Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

: Mason Gross School of the Arts
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Mason Gross School of the Arts is the arts conservatory at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It is named for Mason W. Gross, the sixteenth president of Rutgers...

; and Marymount Manhattan College
Marymount Manhattan College
Marymount Manhattan College is an urban, coeducational, independent, private, liberal arts college located in Manhattan, New York City, New York with a focus in performing arts. The mission of the College is to educate a socially and economically diverse student body by fostering intellectual...

.

Awards & Nominations

Tony Awards
  • Nominated, 1989, Best Direction of a Musical, Starmites
    Starmites
    Starmites is a musical with music and lyrics by Barry Keating and a book by Stuart Ross and Barry Keating, first presented at the Ark Theatre Company. It received a Tony Award nomination as Best Musical....



New York Drama Critics' Circle
New York Drama Critics' Circle
The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...

  • Won, 1990, Best Foreign Play, Privates on Parade
    Privates on Parade
    Privates on Parade: A Play with Songs in Two Acts is a 1977 farce by English playwright Peter Nichols , with music by Denis King.-Plot:...



Independent Reviewers of New England
  • Won, 1999, Best Director, The Huntington Theatre Company, The Mikado
    The Mikado
    The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...



Directors Guild of America Award
  • Won, 2010, Best Direction: Daytime, One Life to Live
  • Won, 2008, Best Direction: Daytime, One Life to Live
  • Won, 2007, Best Direction: Daytime, One Life to Live
  • Nominated, 2006, Best Direction: Daytime, One Life to Live
  • Nominated, 2005, Best Direction: Daytime, One Life to Live
  • Won, 2003, Best Direction: Daytime, One Life to Live
  • Nominated, 2002, Best Direction: Daytime, One Life to Live

Daytime Emmy Award
Daytime Emmy Award
The Daytime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American daytime television programming...

  • Nominated, 2010, Directing Team, One Life to Live
  • Won, 2009, Directing Team, One Life to Live
  • Won, 2008, Directing Team, One Life to Live
  • Nominated, 2004, Directing Team, One Life to Live
  • Nominated, 2001, Directing Team, As the World Turns
  • Nominated, 2000, Directing Team, As the World Turns
  • Nominated, 1995, Directing Team, As the World Turns
  • Won, 1993, Directing Team, As the World Turns

Education

In 2002, Mr. Carpenter completed his Masters Degree in 19th Century British Theatre at New York University. Previously, he received the Bob Hope Scholarship for graduate study at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts: MFA Theatre program. He received his BFA from Boston University School of Fine Arts, where he graduated Cum Laude as the Harold C. Case Scholar. He has attended many workshops and seminars, the most extensive of which was a semester long FEDAPT program: “Producing for the Professional Theatre.” .

External links

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